An appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metum or argumentum in terrorem) is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by attempting to increase fear towards an alternative.

One fallacy is an appeal to fear, which increases fear for an alternate point of view. If someone fears the alternative, then they are more likely to choose your side in an argument. But, this is based on the emotion of fear rather than a logical reason to support your point of view.

An appeal to fear fallacy happens when someone tries to frighten you into agreeing with them, instead of giving good reasons for why you should believe something is true or right. Imagine a friend telling you that if you don’t wear a certain type of …

An appeal to fear fallacy occurs when someone uses fear to drive a response to an argument. Typically, fear is used to make a decision or position seem fraught with negative consequences. Often, an appeal to fear fallacy occurs in conjunction with a slippery slope fallacy.

We compiled the largest meta-analytic database of fear appeals to date to examine the effectiveness of fear appeals for changing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, and also to test moderator predictions made by a variety of influential fear appeal theories.

Fear appeals are a polarizing issue, with proponents confident in their efficacy and opponents confident that they backfire. We present the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis investigating fear appeals’ effectiveness for influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors.

WASHINGTON — Fear-based appeals appear to be effective at influencing attitudes and behaviors, especially among women, according to a comprehensive review of over 50 years of research on the topic, published by the American Psychological Association.

Sep 18, 2018 · Fear appeals are messages that try to persuade people about the potential harm that may happen to them if they do not accept the messages’ recommendations (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). Fear...

Fear appeals are a polarizing issue, with proponents confident in their efficacy and opponents confident that they backfire. We present the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis investigating fear appeals' effectiveness for influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors.

The fallacy of appeal to fear (aka argumentum in terrorem) is a type of appeal to emotion which leverages fear to reject a proposed position.